Labour isn't offering anything. Rolled back on the Green Investment, it was £28 billion a year, now it's only when we get "growth" and it includes current Tory government investment and will only be met at the end of the Parliament. Rolling back on the ending of Non-dom tax rules, it was to abolish and now it will only apply if you've lived in the UK for more than four years.
Labour don't have to offer anything they merely have to avoid the bear traps and smears the Conservatives will try to trap them with, because the Conservatives have destroyed the economy by making false promises or lying about Brexit. Their best trade deal means we will now live off frozen Lamb and Beef from the other side of the world so the Conservatives cannot criticise Labour on the green agenda because we could have had fresh meat from Europe 6 hours away and instead we ship it from half way round the world. We now have privatised companies that are little more than Ponzi schemes giving very poor service for high monthly payments. All this promised to the Brexit bankrollers by the ERG and the lemmings from UKIP and now Reform.
"Governments lose elections, Oppositions don't win them". The Tories have no policies to vote for. All they will do is go after Labour. That cannot work, we remember all the chaos, corruption, and incompetence.
Personally I see no evidence that the Tories have been genuinely popular since the 1992 election. In 2010 they failed to win a majority despite a massive economic crisis immediately before the election. In 2015 the scraped a minimal majority mainly because the Lib Dem vote collapsed allowing the Tories to leapfrog the Lib Dems in former Tory-Lib Dem marginals (and that's because the Lib Dem vote defected to Labour, not the Tories, the Tory vote share went from 36.1% to 36.8% between 2010 and 2015, but in terms of vote-share Labour gained on the Tories). In 2017 the Tory vote share did jump a lot, but then so did Labour's, that was the first of two Brexit elections, with leavers backing the Tories and remainers backing Labour, the closeness of the election result mirrored the closeness of the referendum, the Tories lost their majority. The only time in the past four elections where the Tories won a substantial majority was 2019, and that seems to have been due to a combination of lucky factors. The Brexit Party unilaterally stood candidates down in Tory held seats (imagine if the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid had done that, and Labour had reciprocated, it wouldn't have been the big Tory victory we got). Corbyn and Johnson were disliked and distrusted, but Corbyn more so by some considerable margin. Corbyn managed to alienate remainers and leavers between 2017 and 2019 in the most incompetent display by a major party leader I have ever seen. So remainers split their votes, while leavers consolidated behind the Tories. But that was a one-off, that showed that general elections are not referendums, remain / second referendum parties actually won most votes in that election, but because their votes were split among many parties, the Tories won. The Tories have been in a civil war that's been ongoing for 30 years. Superficially this was a civil war about the EU, triggered by Maastricht, but Brexit hasn't resolved it. It isn't really a left-right civil war, but nationalist vs economic liberal factions of the party. So my own personal opinion is that the Tories have never been popular during this period in office. I believe if Miliband had stayed leader after 2015 the fallout from the Brexit referendum would have been very different, he did an amazing job keeping Labour united between 2010 and 2015, I think he could have done that again. I think he would have had a more coherent and workable Brexit strategy right from the get-go. Without Corbyn the last nine years would have looked very different, and not in a good way for the Tories.
The Tories' share of the vote increased from 31% in 1997, when Labour won by a landslide. Their share of the vote increased to 32% in 2001, then 33% in 2005 (they lost both these General Elections), then 35% in 2010, when they formed the coalition with the Lib Dems, then up to 37% in 2015, when they won an overall majority. Then up further to 40% in 2017, when they lost their overall majority (due to the quirks of FPTP), then up to 43.5% in 2019, their biggest share of the vote since Thatcher became PM in 1979 (44%). I'd say increasing your share of the vote in 6 consecutive General Elections is pretty impressive, and I'm not a Tory voter. In contrast, Labour's defeat in 2019 was their worst since 1987, 11% behind the Tories in terms of share of the vote (43.5% to 32% in 2019, 42% to 31% in 1987), which ended up with Tory majorities of 80 in 2019 and 100 in 1987. I'd still say Labour's worse defeat since WW II was in 1983, when then won barely 200 seats, got only 28% of the vote and the Tories won a massive 140 seat majority, as the non Tory share of the vote split almost equally, 28% to Labour and 26% to the Lib/SDP Alliance, which ended up with only around 30 seats, again due to the vagaries of FPTP.
Labour need to get on board with "back to square one" by reminding people how good it was back in 2008 before the financial crash and 2010 before the coalition. Simples.
The simple question is can Labour withstand the Tory election bombardment that will surely come. If they can do that and maybe Reform's vote slipping then they can win the election. Hope Starmer's calmness can withstand the battering he will endure in the second part of the year.
Labour’s essential problem is that the extreme social liberalism (aka wokeness) endemic in the campaigners somewhat turns off their traditional working class base which supports them for economically socialist reasons. That said, i would be astonished if Labour didn’t at least form a coalition government this year.
I think that's a simplistic analysis. Do you imagine working class people aren't gay, or trans, or have gay or trans relatives? There are working class people who are socially conservative and economically left-of-centre, but why would they vote Tory or Reform if they disagree with their economic policies? Economic policies affect people far more than socially liberal policies. An economically right-wing government can slash the health service, make higher education only affordable to the affluent, impoverish millions (they have done all of that). But giving trans people rights make absolutely zero difference to *my* quality of life. And working class people understand that perfectly well. You seem to imagine all working class people are quasi-fascist (ie economically left of centre, but socially authoritarian), but working class people have been fighting for the rights of minorities for a century and more. Who do you imagine it was fighting Mosely in Cable Street?
@@AlunParsons While I slightly agree with what you said, being slightly traditional, conservative, or relatively centrist on social issues does not make you 'socially authoritarian'. Also, cultural/social issues definitely does play a factor in voting patterns especially with regards to voting for Labour. These cultural issues not only include 'wokeism' such as trans issues or gender but also the topic of immigration. It's not just about the economy.
@@AlunParsons The issue is that ‘working class’ was a much stronger form of identity back in the day than it is today. Working class people voted Labour because it was a matter of identity, not just because it was in their economic interests. The social science indicates that nowadays, they are more prone to view themselves as poor instead, which is not the same thing. But they still are very attached to being British (or rather, English), and that national identity is tied to the social conservatism. That is partly why socially conservative, ethno-nationalistic right wing populism (Johnson) trumps economically egalitarian, socially progressive left wing populism (Corbyn). This is not just Britain, but most advanced democracies.
No it doesn't. Fighting complacency has nothing to do with Labour's election success. Neither does Starmers credibility or popularity, he has neither. It depends on how utterly useless the Tories are and continue to be. That's what will push Starmer across the electoral winning line.
But hasn’t that been his slogan for the past year?stop the boats. Not even tax cuts can save the nasty party. People see the decay everywhere from 12 years of laissez faire, run down public services
@@ianfraser6161 How so? Immigration, particularly immigration from Muslim countries, is a serious topic not only in UK but also in Europe. It is a reason why nationalism or far-right parties are rising in Europe - left-wing parties don't take it seriously enough. Think of Meloni, Geert Wilders, rise of Afd, rise of right in Sweden, Marine le pen, Poland, Hungary. About the interventionist point with the economy, this is important such as increasing house building and council housing, energy security for reducing energy bills and tackling climate change. investments that can be made to finally help increase UK productivity that has stagnated for 13 years and has led to 15 years of wage stagnation, etc... These are just some of the things I could think of and if they ran on this I think they would do very well as it targets lots of different voters.
The problem for Labour under Starmer is: 1. people are not sure what the broad thrust of their policies are; 2. Starmer is a put off, lacks charisma and communication skills. They will win of course, but there is no real enthusiasm for Starmer. Starmer is really not a good leader at all.
"Labour's election success depends on fighting complacency" Not promoting, or better still never mentioning the woke lunacy on race, gender and migration much beloved by Labour activists will actually ensure that they have a much better chance of getting elected.
